Thursday, October 19, 2006

"And lastly, as promised, a Special Comment tonight on the signing of the Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived… as people in fear.

And now — our rights and our freedoms in peril — we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid… of the wrong thing.Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering: A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before — and we have been here before led here — by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives — only to watch him use those Acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote, about America.

We have been here, when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives — only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as "Hyphenated Americans," most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said, about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9-0-6-6 was necessary to save American lives — only to watch him use that Order to imprison and pauperize 110-thousand Americans…While his man-in-charge…General DeWitt, told Congress: "It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen — he is still a Japanese."

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did — but for the choices they or their ancestors had made, about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons. And each, was a betrayal of that for which the President who advocated them, claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced, survived him, and……one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900-thousand votes… though his Presidential campaign was conducted entirely… from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt's internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States, to the citizens of the United States, whose lives it ruined.

The most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been, only human. We have let Roosevelt's "fear of fear itself" overtake us. We have listened to the little voice inside that has said "the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass." We have accepted, that the only way to stop the terrorists, is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists. Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets, was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.Or substitute… the Japanese.Or the Germans.Or the Socialists.Or the Anarchists.Or the Immigrants.Or the British.Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always… wrong.

"With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?"

Wise words. And ironic ones, Mr. Bush. Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act. You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly — of course — the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously… was you. We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." But even within this history, we have not before codified, the poisoning of Habeas Corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done, to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that "the United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values" and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens "Unlawful Enemy Combatants" and ship them somewhere — anywhere — but may now, if he so decides, declare you an "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this, hyperbole or hysteria… ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was President, or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was President, or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was President.

And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant" — exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check. He lied to get it. He lied as he received it. Is there any reason to even hope, he has not lied about how he intends to use it, nor who he intends to use it against?

"These military commissions will provide a fair trial," you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush. "In which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney, and can hear all the evidence against them."

'Presumed innocent,' Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain "serious mental and physical trauma" in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

'Access to an attorney,' Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant, on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

'Hearing all the evidence,' Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir. They are lies, that imperil us all.

"One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks," …you told us yesterday… "said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America."

That terrorist, sir, could only hope. Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas Corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The Moral Force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush… they would be "the beginning of the end of America."

And did it even occur to you once sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 — that with only a little further shift in this world we now know — just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died —Did it ever occur to you once, that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future President and a "competent tribunal" of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" for… and convene a Military Commission to try… not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, sir, all of them — as always — wrong."

Someone had to say it. Mr. Olberman said better than any of us good try to.

Currently listening:CowardBy Made Out Of BabiesRelease date: By 5 September, 2006

Sunday, October 15, 2006

It's pitch black outside at five twenty three am on a Sunday morning. The still of the crisp morning air translates to the quietness of the enviornment I'm sitting in. The only loud thing is the blinking antenna light at the top of the Prudential Center which I can see from my bedroom clear as day as I look out my window.

Insomnia is the worst when it's for nothing and everything at the same time.

I'm thinking where will I be this time next year? Where will any of us be?

I think about waiting. I think about how people never feel the same way you do at the same time you do.

I think about things that are said that are taken in jest, weren't always intended to be taken in jest, whther the sayer complimented what they said with "i'm just joking" or not.

I think about the constant barrage of media speculation, and mostly spin, about how there's an inherently oxymoronic view in what we're told to look up to and what the reality actually is. Everyday, more and more, it's proven there are no more heroes left in the world. Just spin doctors who try to portray the mediocre as the good.

I think about how I could go running along the Chrales right now to clear my mind just because I can.

I think about the week coming up and the show one week from yesterday and with so many things going on will people even realy show up?

I think about a cute girl I met today and the random conversation we engaged in. And how it will never go any further than that.

I think about how anytime I feel like I can be delibrate and truly savor things building slowly , instead, it turns out, I'm suddenly in the midsts of a race for attention that I will undoubtedly eventually lose to a craftier, quicker competitor, whether I even know who this person is or not.

I think about that feeling I have in my gut that tells me I'm never happy in any one place for too long before I feel the need to nomadically move on to somewhere else. I inherited this feeling from my father.

I think about what happens when you have a temporary block in your creativity and what one can do to unblock said clog. It's only temporary, (these things usually are) but it's not less frustrating. Much like your issues with women right now.

I think about, what if one million dollars fell in my lap tomorrow, and how that would allow so many things to come to light.

I think about where we are in the world in perspective to other people and how we are viewed from the other side of the world.

I think about how I would like to go to Australia someday with whatever girl I marry.

I think about a thing I wrote about five years ago about a Nine Inch Nails song and the eventually consequences of said piece. (Things coming to fruition is in the mind of the beholder.)

I think about how we are censored everyday in our words and actions because of the opinions of those around us. I can't understand why we allow this mental slavery to continue.

I think about how most people in middle america can only be so enlightened to equate naked bodies and stories about sex with porngraphy because they can't handle and aren't mature enough to deal with sex in an adult way. This will be passed down from generation to generation, with no head way being made. In these small towns and communities, sex will always be the dirty taboo thing they make it.

I think about how silly controversies are made in this country by scared people who can't face themselves and hold too much shame, so they have to pass this shame on to other people.

I think about ex-girlfriends and what they are doing now. All of them. If I was hit by a bus tomorrow, would the realize what they missed? Do I realize what I missed?

I think about being alone and whether or not others are alone right now like me.

I think about the fact that despite what we want, it's never actually about what we want, no matter how right we make it in our heads.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Words were meant.Games were played.Things were bought.Honesty was lost.Cash was spent.Time was cost.Hearts were broken.Thoughts were wronged.Things were said.Peace was made.Feelings were unaccounted.Meanings were misconstrued.Births were witnessed.Weddings were malinged.Lies were hidden.Smiles were feigned.Lips were sealed.Shame was left.Eyes were worried.Heads were ached.Pasts were unearthed.Faces were touched.Kisses were stolen.Dreams were deferred.Beds were lain.Sighs were loved.Futures were taken.Words were said.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Yesterday I spent almost an hour and a half writing out this huge analyzation of my fear of commitiment and how it relates back to life working in circles and how this actual fear is an acceptance of my fear of rejection and a rejection of my fear of success blah blah blah...

I hit "publish post" and the work web server reset and I lost the whole fucking thing, and it made me realize how transient words are until they "aren't". I mean, you know that feeling of feeling defeated after you had just poured everything you had for the last hour into this thing that you were writing that was so good and right and, despite it's long rambling nature, amde sense at the time you wrote it?

And then it's just gone.

Poof.

Like a magician who fucked up the magic trick and is standing there embarrassed cause that thing he made dissappear? Yeah, he can't get it back.

The problem then becomes do you rewrite what you had or do you take it as a hint that it either wasn't worth posting for others to read, or even more cosmically, it was never meant to be posted or read in the first place. It wasn't "God's grand scheme" for that particular piece of writing, as it were.

Now I'm talking about words as if they're living, breathing, animate objects.

But aren't they?

"So why not simply re-write what you wrote?"

Because it's not that simple, my dear friends. You see there was somehting special, unique even, to those words that were written at that time in that place. Time erodes away at the meaning until you can only grasp at the whisps of what the original intent of said words were.

It's kind of like that really intense dream you had that leaves you with this knotty feeling in your stomach, but as the minutes tick away after you open your eyes, you can't remember any details about the dream (except the feelings it left you with) and all you do have left is that feeling. That feeling is like the cliff note to the dream, but no matter how hard you try to force the memories, they won't come.

The moment has passed.

So, I'm left with a quandry of trying to equate this analogy to some stuff that's going on in my life right now. Is it even analogous really? I don't know. But I see a pattern forming. And even if I say or anyone else says that it's different this time, I probably know deep down it's not.

And as much as I want something more than a cliff note lying in my stomach or my head, all the warning signs are there that this is aiming up to be exactly the same thing. Same outline and sketch, different person coloring.

Maybe I am...masochistic?

Maybe it is a need to be comfortable with rejection, so despite my implicit fear of it, it is where I am cofortable and where i tread that line bewteen "being rejected" and "not really being rejected".

Which in all reality, is just kind of being.

Which is static after a while, which I hate. Static.

And meanwhile I have the reality of some sort of minor success kind of smiling me in the face and I'm so scared of this other thing (over here, not the other thing over there that I'm told "is really different this time", but is it really?) being successful, that I subconciously try to think of ways to make it a failure. I sabotage a possible success before it has a chance to be successful, sometimes fully realizing that my actions that would immediately lead to some sort of grand destruction I could have avoided and wished I had but I didn't.

Why do I always do that?

Confusing more so to me, (on so many ridiculously complex leverls, you have no idea), then even you dear reader, although you wonder how can that be?

One person told me recently I worry too much. This could be equated with the fact that I think too much about stuff too.

What stuff? You name it and I'll overanalyze to next Tuesday, "give meself an ulcer", and then decided ultimately the best thing is to just keep it all inside. It's external because I share with a very scared few people but it's internalized until I'm almost sick about.

Of this I am really aware, as it is my nature.

Some people would say it's sick. It's a neurosis. I don't see it neccessarily like that.

Acute hypersisnsitivity to everything. I might agree. But does that make me a bad person. DOes being thoughtful, and introspective, and aware, and yes, even empathic...are those all bad qualities?

Being obsessive and complusive tends to run in the family a bit.

But I'm comfortbale in that I know I do this. Realization is the first step to healing isn't it? But what if I don't feel like I have anything the needs healing.

Part of me says I am this way.

Deal or no deal.

Pas or no pas.

So anyways, bottom line being, I don't know where this goes from here. If it was that easy I wouldn't type all this out and go over it later with a fine tooth comb.

(Such is in my nature, as the way I am, to do.)

And there's nothing stopping me from yelling out "Stop, this isn't what I want. THIS is what I want and it should work thusly."

Except there is.

SO why can't I be truly one hundred percent honest. Why can't peope be one hundred percent honest with me?

When I say "what do you want me to say?". it isn't just to mimic the common phrasiology of the time when these things happen.

I think part of me is saying, tell me what you want me to say and I'll say it.

But also, the rebel in me says fuck that. You don't get that satisfaction. Not from a place of revenge, but from a place of defense.

Life isn't a fairy tale, or even a moderate box office grossing romantic comedy. Life is difficult and scary and confusing and if your lucky, you get everything you want and you end up happily ever after, even if not for a couple of weeks.

If your not, you end up lonely and dead and wishing you had done things different in your life. You wish you hadn't followed those cycles, or you at least did something, anything, to break that cylce. You would wish you had done something that pulled everybody out of the cycle, took the girl in your arms, kissed her, and rode of into the....no no no...that shit just never, ever, ever happens.

Ever.

Just how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

The world may never know.

Currently listening:S/TBy Queens Of The Stone AgeRelease date: By 22 September, 1998